And now take the time to write, knit, weave and crochet... I eat good food, I walk the dog and I care about what people think about everything. While I have shelter and sustenance, I am calm and peaceful, but I'm not assured that the serenity I live in now will abide if I were to lose my income and lived under a bridge. I do not live under any illusions that life is fair. I have had too much heartbreak to believe in justice and so have you.
To Tracy and Kelly, as we are just days away from the longest day of the year… summer solstice 2025
Today, it’s getting out of bed and making lemon bars, and coleslaw, to celebrate Jack and Nori. Jesse has the ribs cooking at home and Nori’s, making baked beans and blackberry cobbler.
For the occasion, I thought of putting a mask on my face and plucking my chin hairs, but I’m not sure I even have time for that and besides, nobody gets that close to me anyway to see whether I have chin hairs or large pores or wrinkles. But, I will, for certain brush my teeth and my hair.
We’re expecting rain on Friday and Saturday. And so the temperatures have been dropping into the low seventies and the fifties at night, so what to wear has me in a conundrum. I know for sure I will wear my acrylic oyster barrette in my hair and take a long-sleeved sweatshirt to Jack’s house.
I suppose I can do laundry while I make the lemon bars and the coleslaw. I could maybe do some reading or do some scrolling. It’s more likely that I will do the latter.
If I’m driving, I should get my car washed because it’s covered in sap from the maple trees and dust from the road construction. The combination creates a sparkly but dull finish, that makes my car look as though it has sat in the barn for decades. Only the bird poop on the hood, falling from up high in the maple trees, gives it away as a car that lives on the street.
Maybe Ancel will drive instead. Either way, I will dread Highways 26 and 217. I will silently wish that Jack still lived on 25th and Ainsworth. But laughing and loving will make me forget that we have to return home on these dreaded highways.
Sitting here on the bed is not getting the food prepped. But sitting here on the bed pretending that I’m talking to you girls face to face makes me stay here a minute or two longer.
Tomorrow I’ll be going to Pho Van for #52, Bun, with chewy, sticky pork skewers and crispy rolls filled with vegetables and undisclosed proteins on noodles flavored with fish sauce.
Saturday, I’ll go meet with a bunch of women and play, I think it’s called, Cards Against Humanity. I haven’t decided what to make yet for me and others to eat.
And while all of these pleasures go on, I’m torn at heart and of mind and my hair turns ever more white around my face, wetted by my tears, as WW3 is being played out on neighboring continents.
I will breathe. I will breathe out prayers into the universe that this madness will end. But as David Byrne has written in his song, Burning Down the House”… “Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.”
My joy is in knowing you and loving you and knowing that I am loved in return. I hope you’re safe, healthy, and at peace.
Waves of ChangeSabine from Coco KnitsSlouchy SweaterNightshade Hat – Pip and PinWatchman’s capWatchman’s cap – 2Cozy Cabin SlippersStevie SweaterArne and Carlos Regia self-striping socksNight Bloom sweaterShepherdess Socks
The day has started so cold. It’s in the 40s, but promises to be in the 70s by day’s end. Satisfying weather for a spring day, I think.
But for now, mid-morning, I’m still in the bed with the blankets pulled up to my hips to keep my legs warm and so as not to disturb the cat lying between my feet.
I awoke to gray skies, but slowly the light has brightened the clouds making me aware of my hunger.
It’s pancakes with eggs, sweetened with maple syrup, I’m thinking. A steaming cup of black coffee. The thought of breakfast, if nothing else, will get me out of my bed, however lazy I feel on this first Sunday in June.
What mahogany? What tile? What swimming pool? What ambiance? Do you mean the broken window? The wire’s hanging out of the ceiling from around the broken fan? The closet doors hanging from their hinges? And no way to lock the door of the room itself.
I was more than disappointed. This was the first time in all of my travels to Mexico that I planned ahead of my trip. Making a reservation in Old Town Mazatlan, unfortunately, I believed the advertisements. Against my better judgment, I made a reservation while still at home. As it turned out, I couldn’t get out of Hotel Belmar fast enough.
Leaving my bag in the room facing the sea, I set off to find a new hotel. I walked and walked until my sandals rubbed red burning blisters into my feet. The sun burned my face. I wanted to cry.
Nicholas, the hotel clerk, was nice. When I said, I wanted to find a new hotel, he said, “Stay, stay”. But I was desperate not to spend my very expensive vacation in the Hotel Belmar. And to top it off, the only beach near the hotel, was a small patch of sand, dark and surrounded by boulders, littered with plastic garbage. It was not even worth exploring.
The malecon swarmed with people. Locals were cooling off in the sweltering heat. Vendors were selling grilled corn on the cob, skewered through on a stick, smothered in butter, and sprinkled with Tajin. Others sold shaved ice, ice cream and soda. Children, covered in wet sand, were squealing. Teenagers were shouting at one another and boom boxes were playing Banda music at top volume.
“I can’t stay there. I chanted inside my head as I walked. What will I do? How will I change hotels? What’s even available? How can I find out? I need water. What am I doing here?” I feared to stay even one night, where the lights flickered in the dark room and the rusty AC unit ground loudly.
So far I didn’t like what I’d seen of Mazatlan. A four-lane highway runs between a strip of hotels and the beach. The beach is steep, a thin strip, broken by huge outcroppings of boulders. This isn’t even the hotel district. This is in Mazatlan Vieja. Right then, I missed my family. What would they say if they saw me now? I was way too hot and my feet were being rubbed raw.
I wished I had picked Acapulco. Acapulco I knew well. I could have gone to Pie de la Cuesta or Zihuatanejo or any number of places that I loved. My dream of buying a small hotel felt crushed, and I certainly wouldn’t be buying anything here.
I hailed a pulmonia. These are small, open-air jeeps with a canopy and music blaring. “Where can I find a cheap hotel?”, I asked the driver in Spanish. These guys get a commission for bringing tourists to particular hotels that they are affiliated with. I also know from experience that when I let them know that I’m fluent in Spanish, they’re going to run into the hotel before me and tell the clerk that I am fluent in Spanish, so there’s no talking among themselves, thinking that I don’t understand what they’re saying.
The driver knows, he says, of a cheap place. It’s called Olas Altas. (High or Big Waves). I’d been traveling in Mexico for a long time, and I knew what hotels go for. But it was peak season, and this is right on the highway with the beach right across those four lanes. Cars were whizzing by and it was quite noisy and dusty. But I was at the point of collapse. Right then I’d pay just about anything.
I wanted to pay $30 a night, but they were insisting on $81. I’ll get a deal, they continued to insist, if I stay for the whole week. I’m embarrassed to say, I paid over $400. This was unheard of in my experience, but as I said, I thought I might keel over if I didn’t find a place to eat and sleep and soak my damaged feet.
I paid and promised to be back shortly. I hopped on the pulmonia again, back to Hotel Belmar. When I told Nicholas that I was leaving, he was none too happy. He made me pay $100 pesos, for the molestia (for the trouble) I guess for showing me the room. It appeared to me that I would have been their only guest. At this point, I would have paid almost anything. Just get me out of here, I thought. I took one more look at the pool, which was covered with a green slime, and was happy to be gone. I think at one time, this was a very cool and trendy hotel. The bones were still there.
Nicholas kept saying, “Piense bien. Tiene que pensar bien.” You better think it over, he was saying. I said, “I’m sorry, but this is my vacation and my money. Adios.” Did he think that I really could have stayed? So back onto the pulmonia. I hopped on and off I went to Olas Altas.
When I arrived, I instantly dropped my luggage in my room and stripped to the skin. I was as red as a beet, I could hardly walk. I couldn’t wear shoes. I had two or three blisters on each foot with at least one that had burst open and was bleeding… and I’m too hot.
Olas Altas was just okay. The rooms were new with air conditioning, the beds were comfy. And across the four-lane highway, was the beach and I could see the spectacular sunset.
I also could see the big red signs saying that there would be no swimming because of dangerous currents and the massive waves. I would have to go searching for a good beach for swimming.
I threw on my swimsuit and threw myself into the pool. I floated in the pool until I felt myself calm down. I was in bed by 9:00 pm. I was tired to the bone and had not had a drink of water or anything to eat all day.
I drug myself to a table by the pool. There was a small restaurant in the hotel and I immediately downed two bottles of Pacifico before drinking glasses and glasses of water. I ordered caldo Tlalpaño which was a soup of rice, avocado, and chicken. I believed it was the best soup I’d ever eaten. And then I had a platillo Mexicano, 1 sope, 1 chili rellano 1 tostada, 1 quesadilla, guacamole, and frijoles.
I didn’t stop until I had my fill. I rested my head in my hands and almost fell asleep. It was time for me to go to my room. I fell into bed and as soon as the traffic died down on the highway, I slept like a baby, listening to the giant waves crash on the shore.
Tomorrow I’ll eat breakfast at Pueblo Bonito. They want to sell me this place, but right now. I don’t want to be sold anything ever.
I spent the rest of the week in Mazatlan staying at Olas Altas. Unlike all of the other times that I’ve been in Mexico this was not fun, not comfortable, not interesting, not anything. I never found the beach that I was looking for… someplace to swim. I did find some good places to eat, which is easy to do in Mexico. But I found that the food in the hotel restaurant was the best food to be found.
I understand that there are people who love Mazatlan. They buy houses and condos and businesses, and vacations and retire there even. But after that experience, I never wanted to go back… to Mazatlan that is.
We had a small forested area that ran along the railroad tracks at the end of our street, maybe 3 blocks to the East. The “Cut” we called it.
Trains went (cut) through our neighborhood to cross the train bridge over the Willamette River to the Union Pacific railroad station on the West side.
At night, we could hear the trains chugging by and blowing their whistles. Chug, chug, whoo hoo. It was a mysterious and forelorn sound to me.
Hobos jumped the train as it slowed to cross the narrow bridge. All the boys were allowed to play in the Cut but were instructed to head for home when the train passed, leaving a group of hobos.
It was a pleasant place to camp out, treed with wild grasses sofening the hard ground. They were out of sight because the tracks were cut deep into the terrain, but we all knew that this was ẃhere the hobos jumped off.
They started camp fires to warm mostly cans of beans. My brother told me this because, being a girl, I wasn’t allowed in the Cut. I was too afraid of those worn and tattered fellows, anyway. Dad, who worked for the railroad, always said they were just men who were down on their luck.
My brother and the neighbirhood boys went down into the Cut as soon as the hobos hopped the next train. They were probably secretly dreaming about one day hopping a train outta there.
They were sure they’d find treasure in the cold ashes around the camp. Something, anything. But mostly, they found cigarette butts and tin cans.
The boys played hobos, tying a kitchen towel or big red or blue handkerchiefs around the end of a long stick fllling it with cans of beans and peanut butter sandwiches pretending to run away from home. They slung that hobo sack over their shoulder, walking down the street as if they were really leaving.
The hobos never caused a bit of trouble, unlike the “hoods.” The hoods were a group of teenage ruffians from school. They drank, smoked and harassed us girls, and fought with each other in small gangs. They never did much damage to the neighborhood or to each other. They were just tough acting.
They stormed around the neighborhood in souped-up cars, wearing tight t-shirts and narrow leather belts on their Levis. To our parent’s chagrin, we fell in love with the bad boys.
That’s who our parents should have warned us about, not the hobos.
How many of us girls got knocked up by hobos? None.
I realized this morning that I have lived alone and supported myself for almost 30 years… less if you discount the 3 years that Ramiro and I lived together… not that he offered much in the way of support.
I have lived as an independent woman all that time without the support of a man. I have made all of my own decisions. I have had no financial assistance from a man. I have had no partnership in which the burdens of life have been shared in all that time. I have done it all on my own.
This has not been what I expected of my life, but these are also the consequences and blessings of the choices and decisions that I have made along the way. I guess you could say I am proud that I have been able to do this.
Other than the 9 months that I was confronted with cancer, I haven’t really struggled. I divorced, and I was educated, and I had a career. I had heartache, but through it all, I supported myself. All of my decisions were made independently, without the consideration of a partner.
This is not extraordinary. Many women do it without praise. Women who are married or are lifetime partners are praised for long-term successful relationships… as well they should be. But so should women who had the strength to say “no” to relationships that could have made their lives easier, but would rather live alone than to suffer bad relationships.
I have been happy and am still happy.
I know that there are women who live independent lives and have partners. But that’s a different conversation.
eyeamdust 